Sharing: The Second Birthday in Guangzhou

I had
several activities during my birthday so I included all of these activities as part
of my birthday celebration. I started my birthday celebration by attending the
Mass for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus with intention to give
thanks for all the blessings and grace.
After breakfast with two friends, I had the final exam in writing and
then follow up a fund raising requests for Nias and Malang, Indonesia. Thanks be to God as He provided several generous
friends to help.

As a friend from Spain
will leave Guangzhou, I spent the afternoon with
her and several friends in her apartment and enjoyed the rural area of Guangzhou.

Three
friends from Latin America wanted to celebrate
my birthday so we planned to have Indonesian meal. It’s their customs to have open invitation as
everybody share the bill except the birthday girl so I also ask several friends
and teachers whether they are interested to have Indonesian meal without
informing it’s my birthday. One of our
teachers came on time and I arrived 30 minutes later. While waiting, I saw my last semester
Japanese friend, who said that he was invited by Haidie to attend my birthday
celebration. I didn’t know he came back
to Guangzhou
since last April and started to have contact with Haidie last week. Then Mariella from Equador, Laura, Hendra and
Melysa from Indonesia,
Haidie and Liz from Mexico
came to join the meal. Two Chinese
friends couldn’t find the place so they decided to go home. We had “rendang, tahu tempe penyet”, stir
and fry kangkoong, seafood fried noodle and fried fish and then enjoyed the
birthday cake from Haidie and Liz after singing happy birthday in English,
Mandarin, Spanish and Indonesia
and also Japanese greetings. It’s a
multicultural birthday celebration!

The
next day morning, I joined the group organized by RCIA team of Cathedral to
have pilgrimage to Shangchuan
Island, Jiangmen and
Zhongshan. Last Sunday after attending the English Mass, a friend informed me
about the trip to Shangchuan
Island so I re-check with
the organizer whether it’s the place where St. Francis Xavier diedsince
as I know St. Francis Xavier died in Sancian
island,
they didn’t know his English name and I also didn’t know his Chinese name so I
asked Sr. Gan about it. She said yes,
it’s the place where he died and the group will visit the beautiful convent of
Jiangmen sister. There are 64
participants, baptized and not yet baptized, including Fr. Joseph, Fr. Li and
Sr. Liu in a bus and a van. We went to
the pier around 2.5 hours drive from
Guangzhou and
then went by boat for around 30 minutes and by small car climbed the hill to
the Francis Xavier’s Tomb Monument. Fr.
Joseph gave brief information about pilgrimage and the life of St. Francis Xavier
including his mission in Indonesia. Upon
arriving Monument, we prayed Station of the Cross which is ended at the statue
of Francis Xavier facing
mainland China.
After praying and singing, I was moved
when Sr. Liu said there are many people in mainland who didn’t know Jesus yet
so she invited all of us to face mainland China and sung Hail Mary in
Mandarin so that more people will know Him.
Whenever I attended Mass in Cathedral, there will be usually non
Catholics beside or in front of me. St.
Francis Xavier hoped to enter (mainland) China but while waiting in Shangchuan island, he was ill and died in
1552, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Xavier. After that we went
to the
beach and threw the small bottle of our wish to the sea and then stayed in a
hotel in Jiangmen.

We
went to Immaculate Heart of Mary Cathedral http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Diocese_of_Jiangmen
to attend a bilingual Cantonese and Mandarin Sunday Mass with main celebrant
Bishop Liang Jian-sen http://stanleymaryknoll.typepad.com/chinahands/2011/03/a-friend-of-maryknoll-ordained-as-bishop-of-jiangmen.html
accompanied by Fr. Joseph, Fr. Li and Deacon Huang. After Mass, Bishop Liang introduced the
history of the Cathedral which was built by Maryknoll in 1923. Then, we visited the Sacred Heart of Mary
Convent to enjoy the fruits provided by the sisters. Sr. Bao Lu got the most attention from all of
us as she just turned 100 years old. She
was the oldest in their community and one of the first five sisters trained by
Maryknoll Sisters in 1934. The Mother
Superior Sr. Maria Li, gave introduction about their congregation: there are 20
young sisters and 5 older sisters which served in 36 Churches in the Jiangmen Diocese. I didn’t know that the beautiful Cathedral
built by Maryknoll is in the same compound with the convent so it’s a holy
coincidence that I could see both of them in the same time especially as the
pilgrimage to Cathedral wasn’t the original plan of the RCIA team.

After
staying a while at the Immaculate
Conception Church
in Zhongshan, including listening to Fr. Li’s explanation about what’s in the
Church, we had sharing session about the pilgrimage. We continued the sharing in the bus as we
should leave for Guangzhou
at 4.00 p.m. During the trip including
on the boat, we sang and played games. I
also had time to ask to several participants, how did they come to Catholic
Church and I only can wonder on how God leads them the way,which
was including
through the website of Guangzhou Diocese!
The pictures for this pilgrimage can be seen at http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0EbuWrFm4ZM2FK.

As
Srs. Annie and Sue came for graduation ceremony, they treated me for a birthday
and graduation lunch.

The
next day, Joanna treated me for an Indonesian lunch for my graduation and her
new apartment. She ordered turmeric
rice, which is a thanksgiving meal in Indonesia, as she said that
turmeric has possible benefit for Alzheimer’s disease. After that, I visited her new apartment and
helped to translate her conversation with her Chinese neighbour.

I attended the last biweekly Indonesian
prayer meeting for this semester at Shamian
Church the next day. There was birthday celebration for Steaven
and myself.

Thank
you very much for your birthday greetings, wishes, gifts and especially your
prayers. May God continue to bless your
missionary journey.